INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Office of Research Services (ORS)

The National Institutes of Health Office of Research Services required the capabilities of an experienced contractor to deliver Information Technology Operations Support to ORS’s critical environments. A few critical environments we support include the Animal Research facilities utilized for clinical research to produce advanced medical care to terminally ill patients, Workplace Safety facilities that contain Radioactive materials and other hazardous materials used for testing, and Campus Security which provides facility access control to all the NIH buildings throughout the Washington DC Metropolitan Area.

XA Systems Solution

For NIH, XA Systems provides ORS with the expertise designed to improve NIH Information Technology Operational Infrastructure, which includes, but is not limited to the following:

APPLICATION AND WEB DEVELOPMENT. XA Systems supports over 3000 network users with network connectivity. Our technical team is responsible for the development, implementation and Section 508 compliance of software applications at ORS.

DESKTOP SUPPORT AND MAINTENANCE. At contract start, XA Systems’ service desk technician team reviewed the existing Service Desk management Plan and updated it to reflect a proactive approach to improving response times to helpdesk service tickets and increase systems inspection frequencies. Through implementing the ITIL best practice framework, XA Systems improved the technology maintenance services (troubleshooting) required at ORS. We have decreased system downtime due to failures while improving the overall customer satisfaction rate.

MAC SUPPORT. XA System’s technical team has successfully undertaken an Apple device support standardization and integration project. This project standardizes and integrates all MAC related products such as workstations, laptops, iPads, and iPhones to the ORS domain enabling the technical team to manage the Apple equipment centrally and securely. The outcome of this project further reduced tickets, management time and costs related to Apple products within ORS.

PATCH MANAGEMENT. Our technical team understands how vital it is to achieve and maintain the task of Network Security at ORS. This task is extremely critical to operations at ORS, due to their network spanning multiple locations with various domains. The network also traverses multiple firewalls and remote or at home users. XA Systems approach to patch management is not simply just scanning for issues and applying fixes, but also includes deploying patches in a test environment, which allows the patches to undergo an in-depth approval process that ensures security is upheld and maintained.

In addition to the services listed above, XA Systems team of management personnel and skilled technicians supported over 3,000 customer personnel by providing the following support services:

Quality Assurance Services

Database Administration Support

Server Administration

Documentation and Technical Writing

Hardware Procurement and Asset management

XA Systems Advantages

XA Systems uses the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager to schedule and push a variety of desktop and/or server patches to address NIH’s security vulnerabilities and upgrade requirements. We generate software deployment packages in support of the numerous COTS applications and the Windows 7 operating systems migration. Through the implementation of ITIL and process improvement methodologies for comprehensive and ongoing program improvement, and structured testing methodology & tools, we are able to provide a high value, cost saving solution. XAS utilized tools such as Test Manager. We also provided system and functional integration along with Section 508 compliance testing services for highly visible deployment projects.

XA Systems increased NIH ORS efficiency of ticket backlog. The reduction in tickets has increased the team’s productivity with on-going high visibility projects, proactively addressing infrastructure and operational issues well in advance. XA Systems completed the Windows 7 migration of over 3000 systems for ORS/ORF before the XP support discontinuation.